Take the new Lifestyle Test and try a sustainable lifestyle

How does my lifestyle affect the climate? How can I live a more sustainable life and improve my quality of life at the same time?

Sitra’s Lifestyle Test has been providing answers to these questions since 2017 and has been a resounding success with over 1.4 million responses.

Now, a new test has been developed based on the lessons Sitra has learned so far and with the help of citizens across Europe. The test is now live in eight European countries: Finland, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Slovenia and Turkey.

The new Lifestyle Test provides tailored suggestions for sustainable lifestyle choices and allows users to build a lifestyle plan to follow their progress. You can try the new Lifestyle Test here.

Quick test calculates a more accurate carbon footprint than before

Test users can take a quick test to calculate their carbon footprint. The test takes no longer than five minutes. It requires no preparation and provides an accurate estimate of your carbon footprint.

Tailored tips to save time, money and the climate

After taking the test, the user receives tailored tips to save time, money and the climate. The tips are divided into four categories: housing; transport; food; and goods and services.

The tips can also be filtered, for example, to select actions that promote health or save money. For example, lowering the temperature of a room or borrowing things instead of buying are smart everyday choices that will save you money.

A plan to help you try a sustainable lifestyle

We don’t all fit one mould. That is why the new test gives you the chance to choose small or big lifestyle changes to put together your own plan for sustainable living.

You can save your plan and mark off the tips you’ve followed as you go along. At the same time, you can track how your carbon footprint is reducing towards a sustainable level.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the average person in Finland had a carbon footprint of slightly over 10 tonnes per year. According to Sitra’s 1.5 Degree Lifestyles study, the estimated global sustainable level by 2030 is 2.5 tonnes.

So we need to be able to reduce our footprint by about a quarter by the end of the decade. It’s a big change, but it doesn’t have to happen overnight.

Every answer matters

Almost 70 per cent of Europe’s climate emissions can be traced back to people’s everyday lives – how we eat, live, move around and consume. This does not mean that stopping the climate crisis is the sole responsibility of individuals; policymakers must also ensure that sustainable choices are easy and attractive for people to make.

To that end, the tests and plans of people in eight European countries feed into an anonymous data pool that can be used to support decision-making and to design smarter products.

All user data is fully anonymous and individual responses cannot be linked with the participants’ identities.

The new tool has been developed in dozens of workshops with people from eight European countries. The tool has been developed as part of the EU-funded PSLifestyle project, part of the European Green Deal.

Take the new Lifestyle Test.